"He is really a dentist," said one of the surveyors with sleepy amusement. "He carries his forceps round in his vest pocket."
"I lost them when I scrambled head first down this gentleman's macadamised road this morning, but if you want a tooth out I can use the tongs."
"My teeth are all sound," said Bates.
"Thank the Lord for that!" the young man answered with an emphatic piety which, for all that appeared, might have been perfectly sincere.
"And the young lady?" he asked after a minute.
"What?"
"The young lady's teeth—the teeth of the intelligent young lady—the intelligent teeth of the young lady—are they sound?"
"Yes."
He sighed deeply. "And to think," he mourned, "that he should have casually lost her just this morning!"
He spoke exactly as if the girl were a penknife or a marble that had rolled from Bates's pocket, and the latter, irritated by an inward fear, grew to hate the jester.